Posted by Diane
a resident of Pleasanton Valley
on Oct 4, 2012 at 8:52 am

The council does not add stop signs or lights around town. Is she applying to be a traffic engineer because she has no education or college degree in traffic solutions or civil engineering.

We have a great traffic engineer in Pleasanton named Mike Tasano who does a wonderful job.

Can she negotiate city contracts and make the tough decisions needed to fix our finances? No. The fire and police are supporting her in hopes that she will give them a better contract than the other candidates.

She supports perpetuity taxes for our grandkids, with no clear idea where the money us going. She scares me with her tax and spend policies.

Posted by Thomas
a resident of Vintage Hills
on Oct 4, 2012 at 9:10 am

Not very deep reporting by the PW. They completely skipped the part about how Erlene worked for James Tong, the developer for the Lin Family that lives in Taiwan, during the Oak Grove project in the hills. They both wanted to jam that awful development into Pleasanton. I remember the 50 plus homes up to 12,000 square feet that were going to sit right on our south ridgetops, after they cut them off. Then Tong also wanted to convert our Vintage Hills shopping center to high density housing. The vineyard area has more than its share of apartments and condos.

Posted by justwondering
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Oct 4, 2012 at 10:53 am

Erlene is the ONLY council candidate listing both Police and Fire endorsements on her web site. I think that's pretty telling about her positions related to issues they'd be interested in. She is also supporting Cheryl for Mayor--again telling about her positions on union issues.

Posted by beware of the naysayers
a resident of Birdland
on Oct 4, 2012 at 11:56 am

The people who comment here are consistent, they attack those they disagree with no matter what the article says. DeMarcus brings accomplishments to the table, she wants to improve our quality of life. The ridicule by people with obvious agendas is unwarrented and cruel.

Posted by What ever
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Oct 4, 2012 at 12:31 pm

Yes, I have a very simple agenda here - make it well known who the unions are supporting. I believe it is very important that the public understands this as public union controlled elected politians have demonstrated over and over again that they don't have the internal fortitude to stand up and do what is right for all citizens.

It is quite telling that DeMarcus wants to funnel more money to safety when safetly already commands a huge percentage of our budget and is crowding out other services.

It would be great to have DeMarcus explain the reasons why she believe safety should get more money.

Posted by To: really
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Oct 4, 2012 at 9:14 pm

The days of public safety HERO worship only lives on in your own mind. The days of leveraging your inflated sense of self-worth has led to increasing demands on the general fund and rapidly increasing pension liabilities that will be paid for by my children, for services we can't afford today but are consuming. My kids can't vote but I can, and I'm voting for both responsible government and responsible candidates. If the candidate has a union endorsement attatched to their name they won't get my vote! Just the way I feel.

Posted by What ever
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Oct 4, 2012 at 11:01 pm

Stop fooling yourself with your own BS and trying to use this as justification even more money. Fire and police jobs aren't nearly as dangerous as many of the others in our community. They like to pretend that they are so they can justify high unjustified compensation. Look up the BLS stats if you don't believe me.

DeMarcus was naive to be talked into being the unions' tool for this election. To make one of her election planks to get more money for safety shows how clueless of a tool she is.

Posted by Concerned
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Oct 5, 2012 at 8:25 pm

I will vote against anyone that is endorsed by the unions. We have some major negotiations coming up and we should not have anyone on the council with a conflict of interest. The council should be representing the taxpayers and not the unions. This is the reason for the current mess we are in at the city,county,state and federal levels where the legislators are controlled by the unions. The taxpayers have finally woken up.

Posted by ??
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Oct 5, 2012 at 9:57 pm

Not only is Erlene endorsed by police and fire but the union rep for non-safety employees has Erlene's sign in her front yard as well.
And by the way, take a look at the latest campaign finance discloures posted on the City web site today. Not only do you have Erlene supported by the unions but look at how much Tong, his family and his minions donated to Erlene's campaign.

Posted by She has no Integrity
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Oct 15, 2012 at 8:07 am

Amazing that I got a flyer on my door step about Erlene that has the word "Integrity" in capital letters. I know her personally and she has ZERO integrity.

For example, she is taking more than 1/2 of her campaign funding from her past employer and huge developer James Tong's and the Lin Family's rich family coffers. Each time there is a TV forum she says nothing about their relationship! This developer has one goal and that is to put her on the council to approve projects like the multi-story condos in Dublin! Erlene, tell the people the truth! You are bought and paid for by developers.

Then she says she is a transportation expert. NO WAY! She has zero education in transportation, None. She is dangerous, and she lost her re-election campaign to the Bart board because she is an "expert" but the people were not fooled. One term on the Bart board 20 years ago is not an expert.

I don't know all of the background between the 3 candidates, but I will thank my lucky stars when she is safely tucked away from the chance to spend my hard earned tax dollars on rich union contracts in exchange for deep pocket donations to her campaign.

Posted by question?
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Nov 2, 2012 at 9:37 am

Can anyone help me, if Erlene is elected, would she have to recuse herself for all projects that are related to Tong or the Lin family, or any other developer that helped fund her excessive $30,000 donation pile?

Posted by Vote NO for Erlene
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Nov 5, 2012 at 6:12 am

Did anyone see the mailer from Erlene showing her sitting on a bulldozer? At least she is honest in her message to flatten the town and start mass construction on thousands of homes for the Lin and Tong families.

Posted by Pentin's the ONE !
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Nov 5, 2012 at 6:34 am

It would be funny, if it wasn't so tragic. Karla and Erlene clawing each others eyes out. Easy solution...just vote for Pentin only. Pentin has actually SERVED Pleasanton continuously for two decades. Parks and Rec Commission, President of Rotary (as a Pls small business owner), currently on Planning commission, plus in many other volunteer activities.
He understands everything about Pleasanton.
For me it's Jerry Pentin Council, Jerry Thorne Mayor.